


all i want

by AmaranthLiz, orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Dialogue Heavy, Feminine Dan Howell, Getting Together, Heavy Angst, Hurt Dan Howell, Hurt Phil Lester, Hurt/Comfort, Like, M/M, Pastel Dan Howell, Prompt Fic, Reunions, Running Away, Starbucks, THE starbucks, a little bit, bc this was meant to be a rp prompt, faking your death, for parts anyway, there's no tags related to fake death wtf, this was only meant to be a short prompt oh my god, we apologise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-27 13:34:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20046877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaranthLiz/pseuds/AmaranthLiz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dan needs some time away. He needs to 'find himself', as dumb as the phrasing is. So, naturally, he fakes his own death.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, for [Camp Dan And Phil America](https://campdnpamerica.tumblr.com/)'s first event, we were given a list of prompts for a rp. But, of course, [Liz](https://cheerful-liz.tumblr.com/) and I decided to make an entire fic about it. Because we can. Here it is!
> 
> Original prompt: Dan faked his death? And Phil plans his funeral. Years later he comes back?

"I love it here, but I miss home already. I kinda wish our little holiday was over, don't you?" Dan says, idly conversing with Phil as walks towards the beach. Phil’s family had invited them out to theirs for a week-long holiday and they were finding the beach to be one of the best parts.

Phil looks at Dan, obviously confused. "But we just got here two days ago, didn't we? How could you already be tired of a holiday?" He laughs gently.

Dan stops walking to look at Phil, sensing what could be the beginnings of a disagreement if he misspoke. "It's just... All the people, I guess. I'm used to it just being me and you, and you're tiring enough as it is," He says, trying to make a joke, but it falls flat.

“Sorry that I dragged you along, I suppose. But you did agree to come, you know.” Phil responds, looking away a bit.

Dan bristles, defensive. "Not like you gave me much of a choice," he mutters, then says louder, "If I didn't come you would've begged me until I caved anyway. And if you somehow _ didn't _ do that, and I had stayed home, you never would have shut up about how much you missed me!"

Phil tuts. “Well, why don’t you just take yourself back to London then? Don’t worry, I won’t bother to even mention missing you. You can pack up when we get in.” He crosses his arms and shakes his head.

Dan looks over at Phil, surprised. "Ok then, maybe I fucking will," he says, and then he's blinking back tears because he knows this is his chance, that he won't have the courage to do anything later. "I'm going for a swim," Dan says coldly, trying to ignore the tears in his eyes from Phil's scathing remarks. He turns on his heel and stalks off, only having to shed his shirt and sandals before he’s ready to go into the water. They had been heading down to the beach, before the fight. He knows Phil won't follow him down now.

Dan knows what he has to do now. It's been sitting at the back of his head for months, maybe even years. He had previously entertained the idea of trying to figure himself out with Phil's help, but Phil deserves better than that. He deserves better than Dan, no matter what anyone, Phil or otherwise, says because Dan is a mess and has been repressing the shit out of anything and everything to do with his sexuality and himself, really, for years.

So Dan swims out to sea. This wasn't his original plan, but he'd taken the time to think up dozens of different scenarios, so he could go through with whatever is the most convenient. He swims for all of seventeen minutes - he knows how long it takes Phil to calm down 

from an argument, and he has to get out of there before that happens.

He makes his way back to shore, letting the scathing voice in his head silence any thoughts of backing out. He has to do this. It's for the best, even Phil knows it, had said it himself, _ “I won’t bother to mention missing you,” _ when Dan could feel Phil had meant _ “I won’t miss you,” _ because that’s how Phil should feel.

He's miffed, a bit, that he can't take anything with him. If he makes a bag to take then Phil will know he's still alive, and that's not what he needs. He doesn't want to give Phil hope, because Dan doesn't know when or even _if_ he's ever coming back. He has a feeling Phil won't believe he's truly gone, not until he can stare at Dan's lifeless body himself - but Dan's only faking his death, though leaving Phil behind feels worse than death ever could.

He manages, in the end, wearing old clothes that Phil will never notice aren't there anymore, to get a ferry off the island. He has a decent stache of money, over a thousand pounds, saved up over almost ten years, that Phil never knew about that he's bringing with him. It was meant to be for emergencies, but Dan needed to take as many precautions to avoid letting anyone know of his continued existence.

Another precaution is making sure the fans don't notice him, wherever he ends up. That's one of the more unpredictable factors, Dan knows, but hair dye isn't too expensive and he’s been wanting to experiment with makeup for years.

He chooses to focus on not being recognized rather than how Phil is probably freaking out back on the Isle.

\---

He doesn't go to London, or Manchester, or Wokingham. He knows people will be more alert in those places, more likely to say, _"Hey, you look like that guy that went missing."_ That's not what he wants, not what he needs. He's tempted to leave the country, but he doesn't have his passport and even if he did, he'd been reported as missing within a few hours of their fight. He'd been reported as missing to the fans days later when the authorities presumably informed Phil and their families that Dan was most likely dead, though no body had been found.

No, he doesn't go anywhere from his past, because he needs somewhere new. He needs somewhere he won't stand out, with his posh voice and tall height and general semi-celebrity status.

But that's a hard place to find, so instead, he travels. He checks into small hotels and B&Bs, pays for a couple of months, gets a part-time job, and leaves. Often he doesn't even get to the job stage, because he needs somewhere he isn't going to be seen, because being seen means being noticed and being noticed means being found before he's ready.

And that's why he did this. He wasn't ready. He needed the time and space to figure out who the fuck he actually is, and he thinks he's getting closer to that with every new name he gives himself and every new town he visits. He feels... free, in a way he never did back home.

He thinks it'd be a good time to go home.

He knows it never will be.

\--

“Mum, have you seen Dan come back in?” Phil asked. He knew that Dan was needing to let off steam, but it was unlikely that he would be out swimming for over two hours.

“No, I haven’t. I didn’t even know he’d gone out,” She replies.

“Oh. He said he was going for a swim a while ago.” Phil sighs. “I suppose I’ll just go see if he’s still out then.”

Even though the argument had been pretty rough, Phil still cares for Dan. It's just odd because by now whoever had gone would have been back, and they’d have apologized to each other already. It's really unlike Dan to let a disagreement get the best of them for this long.

As Phil approaches the beach, he sees Dan’s sandals sitting on a rock nearby. He picks them up and takes them with him as he goes, thinking of how easy it would have been for someone to just walk up and steal them and how silly of Dan it was to just leave them where he can’t see them. 

As he rounds the corner, he sees Martyn standing out by the water speaking to what looked to be a police officer. Cornelia stands on the other side of him, looking out at the water with her hand to her mouth. Upon further surveillance, Phil also notices that there are a couple of officers standing almost knee-deep in the water, and one further out.

As soon as Cornelia sees him, she begins to walk over to him swiftly. The look on her face tells Phil that something’s not right.

“What’s happened?” Phil asks, concern tinting his voice.

“Don’t worry. It’s gonna be alright, just stay off the shore,” Cornelia says as she approaches, holding her cardigan together against the chill with crossed arms.

“Did someone get caught in a riptide?” Phil asks her, still unaware of what she’s even worried herself with.

“Phil.” She stops and looks him in eyes with pursed lips as if she can’t get out what she wants to say. Her head drops and looks to Dan’s sandals that Phil is still holding in his hand. “They’re trying to find him.”

“HIm? You mean Dan? What do you mean they’re trying to find him, he just went for a swim!” Phil’s voice cracks slightly as his pulse quickens. 

Looking back to the officers in the water, he sees Dan’s flannel shirt sitting in the sand, slowly being dragged further out each time the water crashes in. That’s when the gravity of the whole situation hits him. _Dan’s missing_. Or maybe he’s drowned. Or maybe-

Phil drops Dan’s sandals and takes off running towards the shore where Dan’s shirt laid. 

“Phil!” He hears Martyn call after him. He doesn’t let it stop him. He keeps running and running until the water soaks through his shoes and reaches up past his knees. 

There was no sign of Dan anywhere. His eyes scan the vast surface of the water beyond him and his heart sinks.

“Phil.” He hears Martyn call again, this time from right behind him. He feels his brother’s hand on his shoulder and turns around to face him. “Come on. There’s no use in you getting lost as well.”

“He’s not lost,” Phil asserts, looking down into the water and then back out to the horizon. _ But maybe he is,_ he thinks.

He hears Martyn sigh and allows himself to soften a bit. After a deep breath, he decides that his brother is right and walks back onto the dry land. His hand reaches for Dan’s shirt that has begun to float away and manages to grab it, bringing it with him. 

“They’re doing what they can,” Cornelia says, having walked over to the two. 

Phil doesn’t have any more words. His knees buckle beneath him and he sits silently in the sand. His mind keeps repeating his words to him over and over again.

_ “Don’t worry, I won’t bother to mention missing you!” _

God, how stupid he’d been just hours ago. No amount of anger was worth the feeling he is experiencing right now.

“And if they don’t find him, then?” He suddenly manages to get out, but only in a whisper.

“Hm?” Martyn responds.

“What happens if they can’t find him?” Phil says again, a bit louder. His eyes have begun to water and his hands shake as they grip Dan’s soaked shirt into his chest.

“We’re just going to hope that they do, alright?” Martyn says, placing his hands in his pockets. 

"We're just going to hope."


	2. Chapter 2

They never did find him. After the first hour it was obvious that if Dan was in that water, he wasn’t alive. His body never turned up either.

Phil had never imagined he’d have to go through his deceased roommate’s belongings, but here he was. It had been a few weeks and he had grown tired and nauseous of seeing Dan’s suitcase from their holiday still just sitting in the lounge where it was dropped after coming home.

Walking around the flat after the accident was so... _insulting_. Everywhere he looked there were “Dan and Phil” decor pieces in some form. Their fans had made them so many things over the years and they always liked to put them up if they were nice. He tried to make a habit of putting away or even throwing out things as he walked past them but still hadn’t tried to go into Dan’s room. It was as if the second he started touching his stuff, then he was truly gone.

“Might as well just get it over with,” He says to himself as he grabs Dan’s suitcase and begins to drag it down the hallway to Dan’s old room.

When he opens the door, he’s immediately struck with the scent of a candle that had been left with its lid off. Turning on the light, he can see it sitting on the table beside Dan's bed. He stops, letting the suitcase fall to the side. The look of the room is just so utterly _Dan_. He lets his eyes pan over the room and just take it all in. The bed still wasn’t even properly made.

He grabs the suitcase off the ground again once he’s gathered the strength to do so and drops it onto the bed. In a quick and intense moment of emotion, he reaches down for the sheets and breathes in their scent as deeply as he can, trying to harbour any slight indication that Dan was ever even here in the first place. He gets the faintest bit of it and keeps gripping it into his face as he sits down and finally allows himself to cry. He wants to scream, but his voice breaks before he can get there. His whole body shakes as he sobs into the dark bedsheets, letting himself fall over on his side.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, and he’s pretty sure he falls asleep. It's torture to stay there holding on to something that isn’t going to last, but it's what he wants to do right then. When he musters up the strength, he manages to finally get up and make the bed. Why he makes the bed Phil isn't sure, but it makes the room feel more like an Ikea set than where his best friend used to live. Phil really isn't sure how he feels about that.

Looking at the freshly made bed, however, it makes him realize that it's the perfect setting for what he’s been dreading making for so long. The fans are beginning to wonder just what had happened to both of the boys and why they hadn’t posted content in over a month. People are even asking things such as “Is Dan dead???” which isn't doing anything to help Phil's mental state. _Well then,_ he decides, _might as well just film the stupid thing and be done with it._

After dragging the lights in and having another breakdown or two, Phil moves his chair to sit right in front of the bed he’d made less than an hour ago, just as Dan always did when he’d film one of his videos. Leaning forward, he presses record on the camera and begins. He sighs and looks in the viewfinder to make sure that you could see the dark background well while still having enough light. _Here goes._

“Hello, internet,” Phil says, doing the little salute as Dan would often do as well. He pauses after and purses his lips as his mind fills with all of the thoughts he knew were going to come. Doing this video in Dan’s style is the way for him to honour his friend, and while it's going to be difficult he still wants to make it happen.

“So, I know you’ve all been wondering what Dan and I have been up to in the past, um...month or so.” He swallows before continuing. “Well, Dan’s not really been up to much.”

_Ugh, why can’t I just say it in a normal way?_ He thinks, stopping to gather himself and try to say the same thing again.

“So, I of all people know how difficult the news that I’m about to share is to hear, but I can’t continue without telling it.” His breath hitches and he sighs. “Dan was involved in an accident about a month ago, and unfortunately, he didn’t make it.”

“I’m really, _really_ sorry.” Each word of the sentence becomes more of a sob until Phil completely breaks down into another fit of tears. How is he supposed to explain what had happened to their following of millions of people? Is he supposed to explain that they’d had an argument and Phil was the one who caused him to go swimming in the first place? Maybe he’d cut out the apology part altogether.

“The details are, well, a whole lot, but- Basically, Dan went out for a swim on holiday and we couldn’t find him after that. It’s been so difficult this past month for all of us. I’m sorry that it happened, but I’m also sorry that I waited this long to come forward about it.”

_God, I should have done everything differently. I had so many chances to change so much and I just-_

“I don’t think that I have to tell you guys how important and amazing of a person that Daniel James Howell was.” He finds himself choking up again. He looks at the time on his phone and realizes it’s taken him nearly thirty minutes just to get as far as he has. “But I do want to say it. Dan was the best person I’d ever met. It’s been so hard to come to terms with him being gone. I’ve never loved anyone like I loved Dan. Well, I still love him.” Phil can’t believe he’s finally said it out loud, but if Dan wasn’t here to know then he supposed that everyone else could.

If he was honest, he’d known he was in love with Dan for years. He was fully aware that Dan had likely felt the same way about him, too, but throughout all of his crises with his sexuality, he never wanted to be the one to push. What a mistake that had been.

“So, yeah. I know this one’s short, but there isn’t all too much to say. I’m sure that once I’m in a better place I will put my whole heart into creating some sort of tribute to him, but in the meantime, I still need to grieve. I’m not sure when I will be back posting regular content if ever. I’m sure that if Dan were here to talk to me he’d push me to keep on, but that’s a whole other thing.”

Phil sighs deeply.

“So yeah. If you guys want to create any kind of tribute type things yourselves, feel free to send them my way and I’ll give them all of the love in the world.” He’d have done the same for Dan.

“Until next time, guys. Goodbye.” He manages a smile before turning off the camera.

When he uploads the video, he posts it to Dan’s channel entitled “Hello, Internet.”. Thankfully they knew each other’s YouTube passwords and he could do that in the first place. The title of the video felt appropriate. Dan’s first-ever video had been titled “HELLO INTERNET.” so the last video to ever be on his channel having a similar title was like giving bookends to all of the content Dan had made in his lifetime. Once it’s posted, Phil makes a point not to look at any social media for a day.

  
\--

He’s just settled down in a hotel room when he sees the video. He'd been expecting it, kind of, in a small part of his mind that believed in logic and reason, but he’d chosen to drown out that voice with self-discovery, with finding himself. That’s a dumb phrase, he thinks, finding yourself, but it’s what he seems to be doing.

The video is called “Hello, Internet.” Before he even watches it, he wonders what the ‘phannies’ thought of the title (he refused to say the name of their fanbase out loud, but they’ve solidified their place in his mind).

He starts crying as soon as the video starts playing. Phil is a wreck, it’s easy to see. There are bags under his eyes and his hair is longer and greasier and Dan is pretty sure he can see the ginger-brown roots of Phil natural hair peeking through. It isn’t hard to see the mess Dan’s room is too, though, despite the made bed, and it pains him even more because Phil hasn’t moved anything, hasn’t cleaned the mess Dan had made packing before they left. Fuck, Phil probably hadn’t even been in the room before that video, had he?

Watching the video, Dan just cries more. He wants to punch Phil, briefly, for joking about it, but he knows he’s just trying to lighten the mood. He wonders - quickly, fleetingly, - if Phil will talk about why, exactly, Dan ‘went for a swim’ - it feels like a euphemism, though he knows nobody knows he’s alive - Phil doesn’t, moving on from the clearly painful memories.

_“I don’t think that I have to tell you guys how important and amazing of a person that Daniel James Howell was,”_ Phil is saying on the screen of Dan’s shitty laptop he bought secondhand two weeks ago, and fuck, does Dan feel like utter shit for leaving him. He almost wants to go back, but he isn’t ready, might never be.

He’s still talking, and the video obviously was barely edited because all Phil’s sobs are there for Dan and the rest of the world to see. _“Dan was the best person I’d ever met-”_ and Dan knows that isn’t really true, knows Phil has met people thousands of times better than Dan and that’s why he had to do this, for Phil to see-

Except then Phil is saying _“I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved Dan,”_ and _“I still love him,”_ and_ “I will put my whole heart into,”_ and it hits him, then, that he can never go back, he can find himself and be true to himself and get over his past but he never go back to Phil, because Phil loves him back and Dan can’t hurt him any more than he has.

Phil is talking about tributes and the chance of him not returning to YouTube and then Dan worries, tears streaming down his face, that if Phil doesn’t upload, doesn’t use social media, then Dan won’t ever know what happens to him, and that isn’t something he’d thought about.

He needs to know Phil is ok. That’s all he can give himself.

\--

He caves, eventually. He only meant to stay in Manchester a day, maybe two, but the cafe had a sign in the window and was hidden in a small corner not many people visited, so Dan figured he was safe. It had been six months, he reasoned, and the world had come to terms with the fact that Dan wasn’t coming back.

And, of course, anyone who still held out hope of Dan magically reappearing would most likely be put off by the currently partially pale pink hair and painted nails and occasional light makeup Dan puts on the days he’s still scared of being caught.

That is, of course, until the day Phil walks into the cafe.


	3. Chapter 3

Phil had hesitated to agree to the date at first, but he knew that it was what he truly needed to be able to move on. It had already been over a year since Dan passed and it wasn’t like there was a reason to wait around for him anymore. Phil thought if maybe he could love someone new, he could get his mind off of grieving Dan every single day.

His quality of life had diminished greatly in that first month or two, so much so that Martyn had to drag him to the hairdresser’s to get a haircut and a fresh dye or else he would have never gone. It was also his brother that pushed him to join a dating app and try to find someone. So now, here he was, about to enter an obscure little cafe in Manchester to meet this guy.

“Hey! Phil, right?” He hears someone say once he’s inside. Looking to his left, he sees the guy he was meeting up with walking over to him.

“Yeah,” He responds, smiling gently. “Hey.”

The guy pulls him in for a hug and he allows it._ Don’t think about Dan. Don’t think about Dan._

“Let’s go get some coffees, eh?” The guy smiles, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah, I love coffee.” Phil laughs as they walk up to the counter.

“H-hey. What can I get started for you?” The barista at the counter asks as he walks up.

Phil looks up and starts when he sees the barista’s face. His eyes are the same brown as Dan’s were, but the hair is longer and pink and he hasn’t got any freckles. He looks so similar to Dan, but he knows that it couldn’t possibly be him. Dan’s dead, after all. Phil can feel a lump growing in his throat the second that the barista smiles and he even has a similar little dimple.

“I-I’m sorry,” Phil says, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean to stare. You just look a lot like somebody I knew once.” He laughs, trying to brush it off.

“No worries, mate,” The man replies with a very interesting accent. “Now what drink could I get for you?”

They both order and then move to sit in some plush chairs by the window.

“So, what do you do for a living?” His date asks him.

“Oh, um. I make videos on the internet,” Phil replies, hating how that sounds every single time he tells someone.

“Oh, do you now?” His date responds, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, no. Not like that!” Phil quickly defends, laughing again. “Like YouTube comedy things, I guess you could say. I used to do tours and things but it’s been a while since I’ve done anything really big.”

“Here’s your drinks, lads.” The barista from earlier sets their mugs down onto the table in front of them.

“Thanks!” Phil says, reaching forward for the cup almost immediately.

After about twenty minutes, it’s easy for Phil to tell that his date just enjoys talking all about himself and sports. Anytime Phil tries to speak about his own hobbies, it lasts maybe thirty seconds before the spotlight is back on his date. When the other man finally leaves, Phil feels like he can breathe again.

_Well at least I tried to get back out there,_ Phil thinks. He walks back up to the counter to get another drink before heading back home to London.

“Hey, could I maybe get a refill to go?” He asks, pulling out his wallet as he speaks.

“Yeah, of course.” The barista smiles sweetly and pushes his pale pink hair out of his face. When he reaches to take Phil’s money out of his hand, he slides his hand slowly across Phil’s fingertips, almost seeming purposeful as he did it but too quick for Phil to be sure.

“Keep the change,” Phil offers, smiling.

“Alright. It’ll be ready soon.” The barista smiles back and then turns away.

A minute or two later, Phil picks up his paper cup and sips gently from it.

“This is perfect. Thank you,” He tells the barista. He sets it down on a table near the door for a second as he zips up his coat preparing for the walk back to the train station. It’s a bit cold outside and the walk wasn’t exactly short.

\--

Dan is stunned. Sure, staying in Manchester was a risky move, considering he’s pretty sure Phil had moved here a couple of months after Dan had ‘died’, but he was so sure, with Manchester’s large population, that the chance of Phil coming into _his_ cafe, of all places, were slim-to-none.

And yet, there Phil goes, walking out of Dan’s homey little cafe out onto the cool streets of the city.

Dan, for his part, is pretty proud of himself for not completely shutting down the moment Phil walked through the door. He came close, of course, and briefly thanked his past self for making the effort to put on that little bit of makeup before he left for work.

And then the man who had told Dan, minutes earlier, that he was waiting for his date to arrive before he ordered anything, stands up, walks over to Phil and hugs him, and Dan has to hold himself back from sobbing as he feels his heart break. He isn’t even all too sure why it upset him too much. He had wanted Phil to move on, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he?

He couldn’t dwell on his conflicting emotions too long, thankfully, as Phil and his date come up to the counter to order. Dan briefly regrets being the only barista there, because he has to compose himself asap and hope neither man notices his freak-out.

“H-Hey, what can I get for you?” Dan says and _what the fuck is that accent, Dan, holy shit,_ and he doesn’t even get time to chastise himself for stuttering because Phil is staring at him, oh God, oh fuck, he knows, he knows _he knows-_

“I-I’m sorry,” Phil says, and Dan has another momentary panic at hearing Phil’s voice in person for the first time in over a year that he tries to cover with a small smile, “I didn’t mean to stare. You just look a lot like somebody I knew once.”

And fuck if that doesn’t hurt Dan to hear. “No worries, mate,” he says back because Phil hasn’t recognized him and Dan is still convincing himself he doesn’t want him to.

And so, Phil and his date order their coffees and sit down and start talking and all the while Dan reminds himself to stop looking at them, you look like a creep, and makes them their drinks. He brings them over and fails miserably to not be almost satisfied, in a twisted way, that the date seems to be a bit of an asshole.

Then again, Dan doesn’t think there is anybody good enough for Phil.

He busies himself with cleaning all the tables and counters in the little cafe for the third time that shift, despite Phil and the other man only being the fourth and fifth people that day. While he does that, he takes the time to reflect.

Phil, for his part, has barely been active online. He went mostly silent after telling everybody what had happened, only tweeting occasionally. He made a video tribute for Dan, of course, and made another that was a compilation of memorial art and videos that he had received by the thousands following the announcement. Dan’s been hearing rumours that Phil has been planning on returning to YouTube soon - by rumours, he means he obsessively stalked fan pages that practically tracked Phil’s every move and has seen for himself the times Phil mentioned his comeback, but nobody has to know that.

Dan even entertains the thought of just wiping off his makeup and walking straight up to Phil and... well, Dan isn’t sure what he’d do, but as nice as_ kiss him_ sounds in his head that’s definitely not an ok thing to do after what Dan did.

But the way Phil looked at him… Sure, he might be on a date right now, but if the date is such an asshole then Phil probably wasn’t fully in charge of who he was talking to right now. Would it really be that bad to tell him?

Dan lets himself think through the hundreds of ways he could tell Phil while he methodically cleans the room. Of course, since all the few tables the place has are clean already, it barely takes him ten minutes, so he resigns himself to gay pining behind the counter where Phil can’t see.

Because even after over a year of not talking to Phil or even his own fucking family, even after a year of turbulent thoughts and reluctant acceptance, Dan is still completely and hopelessly in love with one Philip Michael Lester.

And it’s that thought that drives him to run out onto the streets, already wiping off his makeup, less than a minute after Phil had walked out the door.

\--

  
As Phil walks away from the shop, he starts reflecting on just how terrible that date was. The guy just wasn’t at all like the kind of person he had made himself seem. Maybe it just wasn’t time for Phil to get back out there and this was the universe showing him that. Not only was the date just absolutely horrific, but that barista looked uncomfortably too familiar and he could barely keep his mind off of it the entire time. Phil knew that it wasn’t logical to ruminate over a stranger like that, but he just couldn’t help it.

The sound of footsteps behind him gets louder and louder until he hears them slow right near him.

“Hey, uh, Phil, right?” It’s the barista from earlier, Phil notes, and he looks vaguely out of breath, though from the sound of the footsteps Phil isn’t all too surprised.

“Oh, yeah.” Phil is immediately wondering if he’d forgotten to pay or something, as it was odd for a barista to follow you out of a cafe like that. He briefly wonders if he’d ever even mentioned his name, as well. “What’s brought you out here?”

The barista looks almost confused at the question, as if he hadn’t expected Phil to ask that.

“Oh, I uh… was just finishing my shift? And my apartment is this way!” The poor man seems unsure in almost everything he says, but Phil thinks it might just be his strange accent. It almost sounds… fake, but Phil just assumes it’s an uncommon one. “Plus your date didn’t seem very nice, so I guess I thought I could keep you company when I saw you walk the same way.”

“Oh, so it was that obvious, huh?” Phil laughs gently. “Yeah, it wasn’t the best I guess. I don’t mind the company.”

The barista laughs a little too. “That, and I was wondering what you meant when you said I look like someone you knew.”

Phil feels his breath catch for a moment when he hears that. He’d worked so hard to push back everything related to Dan at this point, especially in preparation for this date today as well.

“Well, yeah. I used to know a guy who had a lot of similarities to you.” He smiles just thinking about Dan again. Don’t cry, he tells himself. Crying to this near-complete strange might be a bit rude, as well. “At least physically. He passed a little bit ago so it was just a bit of a shock is all.”

The barista blinks at him. It occurs to Phil that he doesn’t even know the guy’s name.

“Oh, that’s… I’m sorry for your loss. Would you-” The man looks hesitant, like he’s debating whether he should keep speaking. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Phil shakes his head immediately. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you with that. Not exactly pleasant or fun conversation to talk about a dead friend.” Phil can feel the beginnings of tears and immediately regrets his own choice of words for causing it.

The man gives him a small smile, and God, he looks so much like Dan.

“I’ve been told I’m a good listener. Besides, you look like you need to talk things out.”

Phil sighs and decides that maybe he should just talk. “He was just such a great guy. We spent so many years by each other nearly 24/7. He was my best friend and my flatmate as well, so it’s not like we had a ton of time apart. All of that changed in just one day. He was there for everything, and then suddenly he wasn’t there at all.” Once he starts, it's difficult to stop. He supposes that’s just what happens when you repress things.

“I know we just left a cafe, but there’s a Starbucks just ahead if you want to sit and talk-slash-vent there instead of in the middle of the street,” the man says, and maybe it’s that he reminds Phil of Dan, but Phil nods without taking in his surroundings, and it isn’t until he’s looking at the same table Phil always sat at with Dan back when they lived in Manchester that Phil realises they’re in that Starbucks.

“Wow, of course, ” Phil says, not realizing he’d even said it out loud. Seeing the other’s reaction made him realize that he had. “Oh, sorry. We actually used to come here together when we lived here some time ago. Funny coincidence.”

"Tell me more about him,” the barista says, so Phil does.

“It’s strange to be talking about him. I’ve been avoiding it for a really long time.” Phil says again as they stand in line to order. He knows he’d had his fill of coffee this afternoon, but it would he thought it odd to just walk in and not buy anything. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about him or remember him. That’s far from the truth. I just don’t want my whole life to become about grieving him. I’ve got to just keep living, you know?”

The man nods. “Yeah, I can understand that. At the same time, grieving is important, y’know?” He notices they’re nearing the front of the queue, and asks Phil, “Oh, do you want something? I’ll pay.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t let you pay for me.” Phil quickly responds. “You’re already doing enough by listening to me, honestly. I haven’t really had anyone like this to just speak openly with in… Well, since he died.” Phil notices the guy look away a bit when he says this.

“Wow, that’s… Do you not have other friends? Family, even?” He asks. They’re at the counter now, and the man orders himself a caramel macchiato and looks at Phil, letting him order.

“Oh, um, just some water for me,” Phil adds quickly, realizing the Starbucks barista was staring at him. After they finish their order, Phil begins to walk to sit and finds himself unconsciously walking to the same place they always sat. Realizing that probably isn’t a good plan, he chooses a spot that’s on the other side of the cafe from it instead.

The man sits down opposite him, putting their drinks on the table.

“Tell me more about his personality. Maybe we’re more alike than you think.” He smirks, but Phil thinks he can see what might be sadness in the man’s brown eyes.

“Oh, well. He just had this way of doing things that was so utterly him. I’d never met anyone as into the same bands and games and tv shows that I was as he was. Over the years admittedly I grew to love him. There wasn’t any fear that we wouldn’t get along.” As soon as the words left his mouth, his mind went back to that day. “Well, that’s not true. Everyone argues, you know. We usually got over everything pretty easy, though. There’s only one argument that we never quite sorted out.” Phil takes a drink of his water, hoping that it can calm the shakiness that he’s begun to feel.

“Oh, really?” The man asks. He sounds sad, Phil notes.

“Yeah. We were on vacation and he was feeling ready to go home but we’d only just gotten there and all and-” Phil stops himself and takes a deep breath. “I was too harsh on him. I don’t know why I was so angry. He was just tired and I should have been more reasonable or agreed to go home or something. The last interaction I ever had with him was that stupid argument.” Phil laughs uncomfortably.

“Hey, you don’t have to talk about that if it’s too painful for you. Tell me more about _Dan._”

Phil swears he feels the world pause for a second when he hears his name. Had he even told this guy that Dan was his friend’s name? Who knows, Phil had been doing an awful lot of talking and he’s sure he’d just let it slip at some point.

“I don’t really know what else there is to say. I loved my best friend and I never told him. I put it off until there was no possible way to ever let him know.” Phil feels his eyes finally start to well with tears. “I mean, the last thing I ever said to him was that I wouldn’t miss him. Not exactly those words, but pretty much.”

Phil looks up at the man and sees him tearing up too.

“Oh Phil,” he says, and whatever accent he had before is completely gone and mother of God he sounds like Dan.

“It’s funny,” Phil says, reaching up to wipe a tear from his eye. “I'm quite sure that maybe he loved me back but was too afraid to say it, you know? It’s okay, though, I guess. I probably just wasn’t at all what he wanted and could never really give him what he needed. I couldn’t be good enough for him even if I had just confessed. It’s not worth worrying about since he’s gone now, anyway.” Phil grips the end of his coat as he speaks, trying to have something to focus his energy on to keep him from full-on sobbing in this cafe.

“Oh God, _Phil_,” the man says again, and he’s not holding back his tears despite the public place. “Phil, I- Fuck, Phil, it’s me, it’s Dan, I’m not fucking dead and I love you so, _so_ much.”

Phil feels his heart stop as he looks into the eyes of the man in front of him. What had he even just said? Phil was sure he was either in a dream or being pranked right now. Dan had been dead for over a year. The likelihood that Dan was actually sitting in front of him was so low, yet Phil finds himself wanting to believe it.

“What?” He says, his voice cracking. “Why would you fuck with me like that?” Phil begins to stand up, completely ready to just leave. Obviously, this person had just wanted to play games with Phil after learning he looked like his dead friend. Yet, looking at the man still sitting in front of him, he’s driven to believe that it’s true, a little. The tears he’s shedding all of a sudden just seem too real for this to be a joke.

“I-I don’t understand,” Phil manages out, crossing his arms to hug himself and hopefully stop shaking.

“Phil, I swear, it’s really me,” Maybe-Dan says, pulling Phil to sit beside him. “Really, Phil, I can prove it if you need me to.”

“I don’t want to believe it,” Phil says back, studying the other’s face as intensively as he can in search of every possible bit of Dan he can find there.

Maybe-Dan puts a hand on Phil’s arm. “Ok then, I’ll prove it.

“Your name is Philip Michael Lester. Your birthday is January 30th. Your eyes are blue and your hair is black but only because you dye it. We first met in person on October 19th, 2009, even though we’d been talking to each other for months before that. Your favourite band is Muse. You’re a magnet for weird people and situations. You’re nowhere near as innocent as you pretend to be on your channel. You steal my cereal and leave all the cupboard doors open. You loved Buffy so much you made your own Buffy poster from printed paper when you were a teenager.” The man Phil is now certain is Dan takes a breath.

“You're Phil Lester, my best friend, and I’m in love with you.”

Phil lunges forward and wraps his arms around Dan so tight that it’s surprising he can even still breathe. He buries his face in Dan’s shoulder and just allows himself to cry. Almost immediately, Dan hugs him back and he feels Dan’s hands gripping the back of his coat and pulling him in as close as he can. Dan’s really here after all this time.

As Phil cries into Dan’s shoulder, he feels Dan loosen his grip and pulls back to look up at him. Dan’s hand moves from holding Phil’s coat to rest on his jaw, wiping away Phil’s tears with his thumb.

Time feels like it stops for a moment as Phil watches while Dan searches his face and then stares into his teary eyes. He barely has time to react, but every ounce of joy that he could possibly feel overwhelms him as Dan’s palms cup his face and he’s pulled in for a kiss. Dan tastes faintly of coffee and caramel. When Phil kisses him back, it’s more salty than sweet as their tears have begun to fall faster down their faces. This feeling was something he never thought he’d have, and he was certain that he could stay within an inch of where he was right now forever. They move slightly away to breathe, their foreheads still touching and Dan keeping his hands right where they are.

“I’m dreaming,” Phil squeaks out softly, his breath bouncing off of Dan’s face and seemingly filling the small bit of space left between them.

“No, I’m pretty sure this is real,” Dan replies, a little breathless. “I love you, and you’re all I want.”

**Author's Note:**

> What did you guys think? This fic, despite being relatively short, was a wild ride. We were up until 4am finishing it! We have a couple ideas for a sequel or epilogue of some sort, so leave a comment if you'd be interested in that :D
> 
> Title of the fic is from the song All I Want by Kodaline


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